Child's heart defect treated with stem cells from placenta

A child's life was probably saved by carrying out a "world-first" operation using stem cells from placentas, says a heart surgeon based in England.

Professor Massimo Caputo from the Bristol Heart Institute used pioneering stem cell "scaffolding" to correct heart defect of a baby named Finley, reports BBC.

He hopes to develop the technology so children born with congenital cardiac disease would not need as many operations.

Finley was born with the main arteries in his heart the wrong way round and at just four days old had his first open-heart surgery at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.

Unfortunately the surgery could not solve the problem and his heart function deteriorated significantly, with the left side of the heart suffering from a severe lack of blood flow.

His mother, Melissa, from Corsham, in Wiltshire, said, "We were prepared from the start that the odds of him surviving were not good.

"After 12 hours, Finley finally came out of surgery but he needed a heart and lung bypass machine to keep alive, and his heart function had deteriorated significantly."

After weeks in intensive care it looked like there was no conventional way to treat Finley's condition and he was reliant on drugs to keep his heart going.

But a new procedure was tried, involving stem cells from a placenta bank.

Prof Caputo injected the cells directly into Finley's heart in the hope they would help damaged blood vessels grow.

The so-called "allogenic" cells were grown by scientists at the Royal Free Hospital in London, and millions of them were injected into Finley's heart muscle.

Allogenic cells have the ability to grow into tissue that is not rejected and in Finley's case, have regenerated damaged heart muscle.

"We weaned him from all the drugs he was on, we weaned him from ventilation," said Prof Caputo.

"He was discharged from ITU and is now a happy growing little boy."